When we built 20Echo we knew we were undertaking a task that people have been trying to master since the beginning of civilization. How can we better understand the best time to hunt and fish to capitalize from time on the water or in the field? In our preliminary research we started at the beginning and noticed quickly that people have been trying to pattern fish and game forever. Even the first fishing logs drawn in caves show Native Americans knew certain times were better for fishing and hunting than others. These drawings and other examples display that humans have known life is more active around dawn and dusk and when the moon is full or new for millennia. As time pressed forward it was discovered that the moon also played a role in controlling ocean behavior. The discovery of tides made the sun and moon the cornerstones for the earliest forms of the fishing calendars and fishing logs. It was not until 1926 that someone actually put methodology in place to begin leveraging this information, enter Solunar Tables.

In May 1926,John Alden Knight compiled a list of 33 factors which were thought to influence the natural behavior of both fresh and saltwater fish. In his experiments all but three of these factors were disproven in the capacities he was testing. The only three factors left standing were sun, moon and tide. As Knight’s research progressed he realized that the sun, moon and tide were actually related so he built what he called the “Solunar Tables”. These tables were first published in 1936 and were the original source of major and minor feeding times. He proved his tables by creating afishing log of 200 record catches showing that 90% were made during his predefined major and minor cycles and while the moon was new. Yahtzee.. Knight was on to something!

Knight’s major & minor theory was later supported by a Biologist atNorthwestern University inChicago. This Biologist, Dr. Frank A. Brown, became fascinated with the biological rhythm of the ocean at a young age after catching rare shrimp off a dock. He went back every night and did not see the shrimp again until exactly one lunar month later. He noticed this and devoted his life to understanding why. Later, Dr. Brown had live oysters flown into his lab in Chicago to further prove his theories on the rhythm of the ocean. It is common knowledge that oysters open their shells at each high tide to feed and Dr. Brown wanted to see if this was caused by local changes in water flow (tide) or as John Knight hypothesized, from Solunar influences.

By taking the oysters out of their natural rhythm and environment for a week he discovered that the organisms changed their opening and closing behavior to when the moon was directly overhead and underfoot in Chicago. This was further fascinating because the oysters were not outside and were now in a different time zone meaning that light and electromagnetic influence were not necessarily contributing factors. Dr. Brown concluded that this is only possible if organisms have astoundingly subtle ways of sensing external environmental changes “right through the laboratory walls”. He said that “All life is probably clued to its local circumstances in ways more intimately and more subtly than we can even measure, and when locality is changed, life senses that.”

How? Parts of this are still a mystery but like the drawings and tables that came before; 20Echo takes patterning to a level never before possible. We harness the power of every external environmental condition available and tag them to your pictures generating echoes from that exact location. These echoes allow you to never forget and instantly compare everything for the ultimate environmental leverage….Instinct like leverage previously reserved for ocean rhythm, oysters and tables.

DM

20Echo uses patent pending technology to harness the power of your pictures to form an instantaneous journal of your surrounding environmental conditions that is intuitive and simple to use. We allow users to snap pictures with mobile devices and instantly capture an automatic log that will help you catch more fish and better understand why and when things happen. Click to LEARN MORE.